Egypt Reports 25th Death from Bird Flu

EGYPT - A 25 year-old Egyptian woman has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus on Wednesday, bringing the number of such deaths to 25 in the populous country, said the Health Ministry.

Health Ministry spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shahine said that HadiyaSalah Ragab, who comes from Al-Murg neighborhood in Cairo, was admitted to the hospital earlier this month and treated with the drug Tamiflu but remained in critical condition until she died Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the ministry said that Ali Mahmoud Ali, who comes from northern Egyptian governorate of Qalyubiya, some 40 km north of Cairo, was admitted to hospital on 28 March, and died on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, another official from the Health Ministry said on Tuesday that another four-year-old boy Ahmed Ramadan Kamal Adean, from Sohag in south of Cairo, contracted the virus, bringing the human cases of the fatal avian influenza to 67.

Egypt is the most affected country by the deadly avian influenza outside Asia. It reported its first H5N1 virus in dead poultry in February 2006 and the first human case in March of the same year.